InfoMed USA

InfoMed USA supports InfoMed in Cuba, which is a premier organization in
medical informatics and the development of medical networks not only in Cuba, but also in
the Caribbean, South America and soon in Africa..

The InfoMed USA folks are absolutely tops in the area of effective
assistance to blockaded Cuba. Their first shipment of some 400 computers got through
thanks to the Pastors for Peace and the courage of a group of fasters, four of whom pushed
their fast to the limit and thereby forced the US to allow the shipment. Operating since
then under Commerce licenses which must be laboriously obtained for each shipment, InfoMed
USA has managed to send down many more hundreds of PCs to form a large part of the medical
computer network on the island. They currently have 700 PCs occupying precious
warehouse space while they await yet another license. The InfoMed network in Cuba has
performed many vital roles, including the dissemination of medical litterature at a time
when Spanish language medical litterature is under effective blockade by the US thanks to
the acquisition of Spanish publishers by US firms. Perhaps someday this will rank as
an article of indictment in a war crimes trial. But the project goes beyond the medical
information network to clinical computing and other uses, playing to Cuba's
strengths in the medical and biomed sector, areas where AfroCubans traditionally,
since the revolution, have had a strong presence.

Most interesting to us, Infomed has a conscious policy of linking up their
technical struggle with those of people of color, supporting Cuba's many endeavors in this
area. As the 1/99 update letter discusses, Infomed USA
and Infomed Cuba are working with medical informatics people from Jamaica and elsewhere in
the Caribbean. The plan is to then move this technology to South Africa and
elsewhere in Africa in support of their health systems where Cuba already has more
physicians on the ground than the World Health Organization. This is truly exciting.
And the best parts are still to come as you can see below, where
InfoMed USA talks about future plans and potential donations of nearly 2000 computers at a
time.

I don't question these figures. I think however that they only state part of the whole.
They suggest that Cubans of African descent are doing significantly better than their
counterparts in the US, as judged by participation in the medical profession. I agree.
They are. I suggest that including population distribution information would give a more
precise idea of proportional representation by group in the medical profession. If we
accept the following figures:

Inhabitants in the US: 290,000,000
Blacks in the US
35,000,000 (12%)
MD's in the US
726,000
Black MD's in the US
17,000 (2.3%)

A Cuban Black is 4 times more likely to be a physician than an American Black.

However, there are still ways to go:

A non-Black Cuban is 6 times more likely to be a physician than a Black Cuban.

Which, nevertheless, is a long step forward from what we observe in the US, where:

A non-Black American is 50 times more likely to be a physician than an American Black.

I hope these comments are useful and that they add to your efforts to look with joy but
also with a critical mind the process of social transformation in Cuba, which started
"only" 40 years ago. I want to see what it achieves in the next 40 years!

Today, October 16, should be for all of us, and particularly for African-Americans, a
good day to appreciate the armed defiance of indigenous peoples of Chiapas, Mexico, the
struggle of the Colombian rebels and particularly the victorious Cuban revolution of the
last 40 years.

Today, 140 years ago (10/16/1859)African-Americans Osborn P. Anderson, John Copeland,
Lewis Leary, Shields Green and Dangerfield Newby decided that they had had enough of the
slave owning society. Armed with "sherman" rifles, they joined the military
invasion of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, led by a John Brown and a small group of
radical abolitionists, calling for slave insurrection, the end of slavery and full control
of their own destiny.

In so doing the fragile balance of the society came to the brink of total disruption.
Rumors about slave insurrections and bloodbaths ran wild, positions became further
polarized, and within a year the nation exploded into civil war. Eventually, the masters
of society offered "emancipation" as the more manageable and damage-controlled
outcome of a chaotic situation (clearly preferable, in their opinion, to the
inpredictability of four million rebelling slaves).

All but O.P. Anderson died in the days and battles that followed the invasion of
slave-owning Virginia. These true heroes of mankind would have had today no problem at all
understanding the stand and the struggle for self-determination and dignity that the
Cubans, the Colombians, the Native Americans of our continent are carrying on. They would
have seen it as their own.

Perhaps today, as homage to those men, we can salute all those in our Americas who
choose either to live in dignity as free people or to die.

We wish to introduce you to our all-volunteer,
humanitarian aid project whose recipients are themselves noted around the world for their
humanitarianism towards other nations.

We refer to the Republic of Cuba, which has sent more than 100,000 volunteers to
Africa, Latin America and Asia to render meaningful, developmental assistance to their
health care systems, education systems and general infrastructure. At his time, Cuba has
402 doctors practicing in rural South Africa (where the White South African doctors don't
want to practice)and is accepting hundreds of you, sending South Africans for training in
Cuban medical schools - free. Now, Cuba is sending more than 2,000 doctors to Central
America to deal with the medical consequences of Hurricane Mitch. Another 200 are
beginning to arrive in Haiti.

President Castro, visiting South Africa in October 1998, said "Cuba is a small
island next to a very powerful neighbor. Nevertheless, the teaching institutions of our
country have already graduated 26,294 African professionals and technicians. 5,850 more
have received training."

"At the same time, 80,524 Cuban civilian specialists, among them 24,714 doctors,
dentists, nurses and health technicians, and thousands of teachers, professors, engineers
and other professionals and qualified workers have served in Africa."

"In the last 30 years, 381,432 Cuban soldiers and officers have fought alongside
African soldiers and officers on the African continent, in support of national
independence or against external aggression."

"From the African lands in which they worked and fought voluntarily and
unselfishly, THEY TOOK BACK TO CUBA ONLY THE REMAINS OF THEIR FALLEN COMRADES AND THE
HONOR OF DUTY FULFILLED." "What Cuba did in Africa was nothing more than the
payment of a debt of gratitude to those who were brought to our lands and subjected to the
most criminal type of exploitation." He added that the first people to struggle for
the independence and freedom of the American hemisphere were African slaves.

The deep African roots of the Cuban people are expressed in the language,
religion, music, dance and the overall culture of the island nation. Equally important,
the Cuban government has for decades supported the independence and the development
efforts of countries in Africa as well as resident countries of the peoples of the
"African diaspora". Case in point is the current support that Cuban technicians
are providing in countries of the Americas such as Brazil, Guyana, Peru, Haiti, Dominican
Republic, Jamaica and other English speaking countries of the Caribbean.

Furthermore, Cuba has been a sanctuary for many African American political activists
under persecution and victims of US injustice. Fighters like Assata Shakur, (http://afrocubaweb.com/assata.htm) framed up
on false charges and now facing extradition attempts by the most vile opponents of Cuba's
sovereignty.

As we in USA-Cuba InfoMed continue to support Cuba's public health system by furnishing
the Ministry of Public Health with computer equipment, Cuba is collaborating with
health and information professionals of Jamaica to develop a similar medical information
network. We are currently preparing to ship to Cuba's doctors and health care
workers about 700 personal computers, all donated by individuals and businesses, and
repaired/packaged by our volunteers.

In conjunction with our Cuban colleagues, we USA volunteers have just concluded a
five-day planning conference in Havana with four visiting medical librarians from Jamaica.
This three-cornered partnership of USA, Cuba and Jamaica will bring Cuba's InfoMed
technology to the islands of Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados.

Afterwards, we will move on to the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean nations.
Ultimately, we expect to be performing this same task in South Africa, where Cuban
president Fidel Castro was recently greeted by President Nelson Mandela as "one of my
greatest friends".

We believe that you will identify with our goal to help the medical infrastructure in
developing nations through our work in Cuba. You can express your support for our work in
the following ways:

*) Send a note to your congressional representative asking for the end of the blockade
of Cuba . The US congress web site, http://www.house.gov,
maintains a list of web sites and postal mailing labels addresses.

*) You can also express your support with a financial contribution to our project. The
money will be used primarily to cover the shipping expenses for our next cargo containers
holding those 700 personal computers that we have already prepared.

Finally, we wish to take one moment to ask you to support the struggle for the life and
freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African American political prisoner
on death row who was framed in the shooting of a Philadelphia policeman.

A massive march for Abu-Jamal will take place in Philadelphia and San Francisco on
April 24, 1999. Be a local organizer. Ask your church and community center to be involved.